Числителните два, двама, две и техните съответствия в белоруския език

The numerals два, двама, две and their analogues in Byelorussian are considered. The analysis is based on excerption by continuous selection from Vazov’s classic novel Under the Yoke and its Byelorussian translation. The different uses with and without article are considered, as well as their free use and in combinations with dependent words. The tendency of the numerals to form a concrete grammar pattern is established; their combinatorial properties, semantic and grammatical, are analysed. The hypothesis about the presence of a collective meaning and a certain generalizing meaning in the semantics of these numerals is substantiated by statistical data from Bulgarian only. The main conclusion is that when used with the article the numerals два, двама, две have a collective meaning and a generalizing one.